Russell Gunn Plays Miles

Chronique

Trumpeter Russell Gunn has always been a forward-thinking musician, incorporating his love of hip-hop and electronics along with his obvious talent for edgy post-bop improvisation. So, it should come as no surprise that Russell Gunn Plays Miles, while obviously a record paying tribute to one of Gunn's biggest influences, the legendary trumpeter Miles Davis, is an edge-of-your-ear experience. Not only has Gunn not made a straight-ahead, acoustic jazz album, he's made a '70s-'80s fusion-era Davis album that defies expectations even on those far-reaching terms. Which isn't to say this is the most "next level" or innovative jazz album in recent years; on the contrary, many of the jazz-funk sounds Gunn re-appropriates on Plays Miles will be almost cozily familiar to any longtime fans of such similarly minded funksters and Davis acolytes as Herbie Hancock, Eddie Henderson, the Jazz Crusaders, Donald Byrd, and others. The rub here is where and when Gunn has chosen to employ these sounds. By the third track in, after you've grown accustomed to Gunn's layered groove on such iconic Davis cuts as the leadoff track, "Tutu" (in itself a bold statement of purpose), and "Bitches Brew," his slow-jam, R&B-infused version of "Blue in Green" is at once tantamount to sacrilege and the hippest joint imaginable. Similarly, Gunn's propulsive and Latin-esque take on Davis' usually spare and dreamy "Eighty One" is unexpectedly rootsy in its dance-oriented funkiness, and comes off as something along the lines of Bootsy Collins backing the Fort Apache Band. Ultimately, the real tribute here is not so much that Gunn is playing Miles, it's that he gets Miles.

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